John Geoghan

John J. Geoghan (/ˈɡeɪɡən/; June 4, 1935 – August 23, 2003) was an American Roman Catholic priest who sexually abused children while he was assigned to parishes in the Boston Archdiocese of Massachusetts. He was reassigned several times to parish posts involving children, including after attempted treatment for pedophilia.

The investigation and prosecution of Geoghan was one of numerous cases of priests accused of sexual abuse in a scandal that rocked the archdiocese in the 1990s and 2000s. It led to the resignation of Boston's archbishop, Cardinal Bernard Francis Law, on December 13, 2002, as he was accused of protecting dozens of priests by reassignment, thus allowing abuse of additional parish children to take place. Law lost the support of his priests and laity. Geoghan was finally convicted of sexual abuse, laicized, and sentenced in 2002 to nine to ten years in Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison. Less than a year later, he was murdered there by Joseph Druce, an inmate who is serving a life sentence. The Boston Globe's coverage of Geoghan's abuse opened the door for public knowledge of the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic archdiocese of Boston and sexual abuse by priests in the USA in general. This coverage is a key plot element of the movie Spotlight that was released in 2015.

Career

Born in Boston in 1935 to an Irish Catholic family, John Joseph Geoghan attended local parochial schools. Intending to become a priest, he attended Cardinal O'Connell Seminary. An assessment in 1954 noted him as "markedly immature." He graduated in 1962 and was ordained.

On February 13, 1962 Geoghan was assigned as an assistant pastor at Blessed Sacrament Parish in Saugus, Massachusetts. That December, Geoghan successfully talked a man out of committing suicide at the Mystic River Bridge, where he was threatening to jump. While Geoghan was assigned to Blessed Sacrament, Rev. Anthony Benzevich allegedly told church officials that the junior priest was observed bringing boys into his bedroom. Benzevich would later deny this allegation. In 1998, Benzevich told reporters he was branded as a troublemaker for reporting Geoghan, and church officials hinted that he might be sent to Peru if he persisted. (In 1995 Geoghan admitted to having molested four boys during his assignment years in Saugus.)

Geoghan was assigned to St. Bernard’s Parish in Concord starting on September 22, 1966. He was transferred after seven months there; church records offered no explanation for his reassignment.

On April 20, 1967, Geoghan was assigned to St. Paul’s Parish in Hingham. Around 1968, a man complained to church authorities that he had caught Geoghan molesting his son. As a result, Geoghan was sent to Seton Institute in Baltimore for treatment for his pedophilia. In the early 1970s, parishioner Joanne Mueller accused Geoghan of molesting her four young sons. Mueller has said that she informed Rev. Paul E. Miceli and he asked her to keep quiet. Miceli disputes her account. The church later reached a settlement with Mueller.

Geoghan’s next assignment was at St. Andrew’s Parish in Jamaica Plain, starting on June 4, 1974. On February 9, 1980 Rev. John E. Thomas told Bishop Thomas Vose Daily that Geoghan admitted to molesting seven boys. Daily called Geoghan and told him to go home. Geoghan admitted to the abuse, but said that he did “not feel it serious or a pastoral problem.” He was placed on sick leave three days later and ordered by Cardinal Humberto Medeiros to undergo counseling. Under the care of doctors Robert Mullins and John H. Brennan, Geoghan underwent psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.

On February 25, 1981, Geoghan returned to pastoral work at St. Brendan’s Parish in Dorchester. While there, he allegedly raped and fondled a boy. In 1982 the family of seven of Geoghan’s victims complained to Bishop Daily that Geoghan had arranged to meet one of his victims at an ice cream shop in Jamaica Plain and was at the time in the company of another boy. On September 18, 1984, Bernard F. Law, the new archbishop of Boston, removed Geoghan from the parish after complaints that he was molesting children.

On November 13, 1984, Law assigned Geoghan to St. Julia’s Parish in Weston. He was put in charge of three youth groups, including altar boys. On December 7, 1984, Auxiliary Bishop John Michael D'Arcy wrote to Law complaining about Geoghan’s assignment to St. Julia’s because of his “history of homosexual involvement with young boys.” That same month, Mullins wrote that Geoghan had “fully recovered,” and Brennan stated that there was no need for restrictions on his work as a priest.

In 1986 new allegations of sexual abuse were made against him. From April 3-12, 1989, Geoghan was treated at the Saint Luke Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland. Here he was diagnosed with homosexual pedophilia. On April 28, 1989, Bishop Robert Joseph Banks ordered Geoghan to leave the ministry.

Geoghan was placed on sick leave on May 24 and from August 10 to November 4, 1989, he was treated at The Institute of Living in Hartford, Connecticut. Upon his release, Geoghan was described as “moderately improved”. Institute officials recommended that he return to assignment. Banks was concerned about the conclusions of the Institute’s discharge summary. On December 13, the Institute sent Banks a letter explaining the discharge summary, stating that “The probability he [Geoghan] would act out again is quite low. However, we could not guarantee that it would not re-occur.”

On November 28, 1990, Banks recommended that Geoghan return to the parish, but left the decision up to Cardinal Law and another bishop. On October 23, 1991 the church received a complaint about Geoghan “proselytizing” with a boy at a pool.

Retirement

In 1993, Geoghan retired from the priesthood at the age of 58. He moved into the Regina Cleri residence for retired priests. Three years later, after more allegations surfaced against him, he spent several months in therapy in the Southdown Institute in Ontario, Canada.

Sexual abuse charges

Over a 30-year career in six parishes, Geoghan was accused of sexual abuse involving more than 130 boys. He was prosecuted in Cambridge, Massachusetts for charges of molestation that took place in 1991. Geoghan was defrocked in 1998 by Pope John Paul II. He was found guilty in January 2002 of indecent assault and battery for grabbing the buttocks of a 10-year-old boy in a swimming pool at the Waltham Boys and Girls Club in 1991, and was sentenced to nine to ten years in prison.

After initially agreeing to a $30 million settlement with 86 of Geoghan's victims, the Boston archdiocese pulled out of it, finally settling with them for $10 million.

Boston's Suffolk County prosecuted Geoghan in two other sexual abuse cases. One case was dropped without prejudice when the victim decided not to testify. In the second case, a judge dismissed conviction of Geoghan in two rapes, after hotly contested arguments, because the statute of limitations had run out. The Commonwealth's appeal of that ruling was active at the time of Geoghan's death. Remaining charges of indecent assault in that case were still pending prosecution.

Murder

On August 23, 2003, while in protective custody at the maximum-security Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, Massachusetts, Geoghan was strangled and stomped to death in his cell by inmate Joseph Druce. The latter was a self-described white supremacist serving a sentence of life without possibility of parole for killing a man who allegedly made sexual advances toward him. He was said to have planned the murder of Geoghan for more than a month, considering him a "prize."

The press raised questions about prison officials' judgment in placing these two men in the same unit for protective custody. In addition, they had been warned by an inmate that Druce had something planned against Geoghan.

A Worcester, Massachusetts jury found Druce guilty of first-degree murder on January 25, 2006, after the jury rejected his insanity defense. Druce was sentenced a second time to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A video, which shows correction officers trying to open Geoghan's prison door, which Druce had wedged shut when he attacked the former priest, was released on YouTube in June 2007. Officials claim not to know how the video, recorded by the prison surveillance systems, was made public.

Geoghan was buried in Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline, Massachusetts on August 28, 2003.

Effects of the Geoghan case on other Church principals

Geoghan was left in his position at St. Julia's although Bishop D'Arcy wrote a letter complaining about his prior behavior. D'Arcy was transferred out of the diocese on February 26, 1985 to Indiana. He served the remainder of his career as Bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend. Law, after his resignation in December 2002 from the Boston see, moved to Rome in 2004. Once considered one of the most prominent men in the US Catholic Church hierarchy, it was "commonly believed that he would live out his retirement in Rome" after he retired at age 80 in 2011.

See also

• Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal
• Roman Catholic priests accused of sex offenses
• Crimen sollicitationis
• Pontifical Secret
• Deliver Us from Evil (2006 film)
• Sex crimes and the Vatican (Panorama documentary episode)
• Barbara Blaine, founder of SNAP (Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests)
• John Jay Report

External links

• Diocesan and court records relating to John Geoghan